Saturday was the day of the rally. After 2 weeks of wrenching at night, BB was ready. I'd fitted the new snow tires and flushed and bled all the fluids. One of the rear brake lines had rusted through- I bent up a new one from that NiCop line using the old fittings and flared it myself. The brakes felt great.
Saturday morning I fired it up and headed out. It was about 60 miles drive to the rally course, and I stopped and got coffee and a breakfast on the way. Met a friend at the gas station where I stopped to fill up and he followed me the rest of the way. No issues at all though- temperature was fine, and it ran well.
We got to the course around 7:30AM. There were a few people there, and everyone loved the Amazon. Unloaded the car and checked everything over for the race, then went through tech and walked the course. It was pretty cool- some elevation changes, laid out in a field of maybe 10 acres or so, lots of dirt and grass but very dry. And when we started racing- man did it get dusty! The seals on the 122 were dry rotted and I left the windows down anyway to cool off- and the car was covered in dust inside and out.
It worked great, though. The snow tires dug in, and even without a limited slip I was still able to get good traction and have enough power to power-slide around some long sweeping turns. The won-out shocks made it bounce a bit, but it was fun and I was pretty fast, or at least felt like it. Everyone else had modern cars (except for a '61 Saab who was done up in full African rally livery, very cool) and most were faster, but few (except for the Saab) looked or sounded as cool.
Lost a good-sized chunk of body filler here.
I need to check my times; I'm pretty sure I was last in my class, but I think I still beat a couple of other cars in stock class. I had to run "prepared", which is a step up from stock, but only because of wider than stock wheels and the electric cooling fan. Prep cars are allowed to run a limited slip, which I did not have, and other modifications.
I didn't have to wrench on a single thing all day, which was great, and drove home without a problem, other than having to wear a dust mask in the car with all the silt from the rally course blowing everywhere. When I first accelerated onto the highway on the way home, a giant cloud of brown dust blew up and probably surprised a lot of other drivers.
Sunday I power washed the car and fitted the street tires back on. I vacuumed out the interior but still need to give it a good wipe down. The plan now is to fix up the driver's seat (it's collapsed and needs new webbing) and figure out how I can mount rear seat belts so the kids can go for a ride. :-D
